


Double or Nothing

by brynnmck



Category: due South
Genre: M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-01
Updated: 2008-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:54:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brynnmck/pseuds/brynnmck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Ray's first hint that Danny might've abandoned the Vegas glitz for the Florida sands was a bottle of high-end chianti, left on Ray's doorstep with a large ceramic iguana curled around it.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Double or Nothing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [belmanoir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/gifts).



> Written for DS Seekrit Santa in 2007. Enormous thanks to SD Wolfpup for services far above and beyond the call of duty, including cheerleading, brainstorming, hand-holding, speed-beta, and outright bribery. Thanks to Greensilver for helping me resolve a plot point, and thanks to everyone who listened to me freak out about this, especially Salieri and China Shop. And finally, thanks to Sprat for being patient with me, and for getting this whole party rolling in the first place!

  
Ray's first hint that Danny might've abandoned the Vegas glitz for the Florida sands was a bottle of high-end chianti, left on Ray's doorstep with a large ceramic iguana curled around it.  
  
"You don't want to mess around with this," Welsh told him over the phone a couple of days later. News traveled fast, and the Feds still had their share of eyes and ears in the desert. "Let me call some of my guys down there, get you some backup."  
  
"I can handle it, sir," Ray answered firmly. He knew what Danny was capable of, and as long as it didn't go far beyond a little harassment, a little intimidation, well--retirement was boring anyway, Ray figured he could use the variety.  
  
A few days after that, when he was standing in front of what used to be his bowling alley watching the flames lick into the sunset sky, he had to admit that this was probably too much variety even for him.  


 

*****

 

Despite everything, Ray felt surprisingly calm. Calm as he stood there and watched the last of the black smoke drifting upward, calm as he lied his way through his statement to the local police-- _no, I don't have any enemies, no, I don't think there was foul play_ \--calm as he got into his car and drove back to his house, calm even as he saw an unfamiliar truck parked along the sidewalk. He still had a concealed weapons permit, and he calmly slipped his gun out of the waistband of his slacks as he calmly got out of the car. The truck didn't really look like Danny's style, but it was probably a rental; maybe it was all they'd had left.

He walked up the path slowly, breathing evenly. Sure enough, there was someone sitting in the shadows on the wide stone steps leading up to the door, and Ray felt a kind of resigned relief start to trickle through him until the figure leaned forward and his hair caught the glow of the streetlight. It was short and slicked straight, not tousled and curly, and Ray's calm shattered like plate glass and over the sudden rushing in his ears, he heard his own voice say,

"Benny."

"Hello, Ray." Fraser's mouth was just barely curved on one side and his eyes were dark, his face half-shadowed from the angle of the light. He had his knees drawn up in front of him, his forearms resting on them. Off-duty, jeans and button-down shirt, his Stetson on the steps beside him. Ray couldn't move, could hardly breathe; it was a little bit like when he'd been shot, details hyper-vivid and time slowed to a crawl.

He didn't know long he stood there staring before he could finally force words out of his dry throat. "Long way from home, aren't you, Fraser?"

Fraser lifted a shoulder. "Francesca told me you were in trouble. Even more than she realized, I think, judging by the smoke smell on your clothes."

And Ray was abruptly angry, slicing hot through the shock. In what world did _Frannie_ know where to find Fraser and Ray didn't? _In a world where Frannie has the guts to ask a few questions_ , nagged a voice in his head, and he told it to shut the fuck up and started up the stairs, keeping a healthy space between himself and Fraser. "I told Welsh I didn't want official police involvement in this," he said roughly, shoving his key into the lock.

"Yes, and I understand that," Fraser answered. He sounded like he'd twisted around; Ray willed himself not to look, concentrating on the cool metal of the door handle under his palm. "But I have no jurisdiction here, Ray. I'm strictly here as..."

He trailed off, and Ray did turn then, feeling his mouth quirk up in an expression he knew he probably would've hated if he'd seen it in a mirror. "Here as what?"

Fraser's eyes crinkled briefly at the corners, the closest he usually got to a wince, and Ray could see his throat move as he swallowed. "Here as your friend," he said, looking up at Ray with that _look_ , that patented Fraser look that was terrifyingly open and infuriatingly closed and that Ray had never, not once, been able to resist.

He sighed, and felt the fight bleed out of him, leaving bone-deep exhaustion behind. "Okay," he said, leaning on the door handle. "You should probably come in, then--it's kind of a long story."

 

*****

 

After a quick mental rundown of the house, Ray decided that the kitchen would be easiest. He'd rejected the living room immediately--too dim, too soft, too tempting when his mind was already flooded with flashbacks of Fraser's smooth pale skin, the way he moved, the way his mouth fell open right before he came. So yeah, the living room was definitely out. And no way that Fraser wouldn't notice that the dining room table had a thick layer of dust on it. And anything beyond that--Ray's office, Ray's _bedroom_ , Jesus, right--was obviously out of the question. So the kitchen it was, and seeing Fraser seated there at the glossy maple table was jarring enough, threw into sharp relief just how far the sleek chrome and granite was from the dark, carved wood that had dominated the kitchen in Ray's old house in Chicago, or even the cracked cabinets and cheap linoleum of the crappy kitchen in Fraser's apartment on West Racine. That was all ashes now, but here Fraser was anyway, Ray's own personal Ghost of Christmas Past in jeans and a Stetson, and Ray found himself rummaging through his cupboards just to have somewhere to look besides Fraser's face.

"Where's Dief?" he asked as he discovered a package of crostini lurking behind the oatmeal. Time was, he and Fraser had done this a few times a week, foraging for midnight snacks after a stakeout or a long day or... Ray yanked his brain away from that train of thought.

"Unfortunately, Diefenbaker recently suffered a bad sprain on one of his hind legs and was unable to accompany me," Fraser answered, and if he was thinking anywhere near what Ray was thinking, he didn't show it. "He was quite sorry to miss the opportunity to see you, but he's being ridiculously spoiled at the outpost, so I suspect that's some solace for him."

"I'm sorry to miss him, too," Ray said, and he meant it, even as the detective part of his brain was noting, _Outpost. So he_ has _been in Canada_. Which meant, maybe... Ripping the band-aid off quick was always better. "And Kowalski? What, is he in quarantine?" Petty, sure, but Ray could live with that.

There was a pause, then, "I would imagine not," Fraser said. "Ray... returned to the United States four months ago. Well. Three months and twenty-two days, to be exact."

And there was _definitely_ a story there, Ray could hear it in Fraser's voice, and that sparked the anger again, only this time it was more like rage, _you stupid son of a bitch, Kowalski, you had everything I wanted and you let it go--_ but Ray tamped it down, breathed deep. He was good at that, now. And when the fury passed, he found it was easier to look Fraser in the eye. Fraser looked sad, and guilty--not an unusual combination for him, really, at least the Fraser that Ray remembered--but not devastated, maybe, and that gave Ray enough hope to actually cross the kitchen and sit down at the table, bringing the crostini and some tapenade with him like a peace offering.

"Danny Langoustini," he said, after they'd munched in silence for a minute or so. Fraser's eyes closed briefly and he let out a short breath, like he'd been hoping for another answer. "It's not what you think," Ray went on. "I don't know if it's better or worse, but it's not what you think."

Fraser raised an eyebrow. "All right. Then what it is it?"

"This isn't just about a cop making them look bad, this is personal, okay? Danny..." Ray sighed, stared down at the plate in front of him, tracing the twisting china pattern with a finger. "Couple of months after I went under, I get this call. My--" he stumbled, recovered--" _Armando's_ sister Guilietta. Her kid's done with college on the east coast, his dad just died a few months ago, and now she wants the kid to come back and learn the family business. At this point I'm still reading the file every night before I go to bed, so it's fresh in my mind: kid was a philosophy major at Yale, real sharp, but he grew up in San Francisco with his ma, so he's not all that close to his uncle Armando. I figure, what the hell, seems safe enough, why not let the Ivy League mob kid trail around after me for a while--he's probably gonna be too busy drinking all my good sherry to be much trouble."

He could still see it in his mind, Danny's face that first day, dark eyes and hair badly in need of a cut and a startlingly bright, genuine smile. Vegas was all bluffs and blinds, sycophants and silicone; genuine stuck out like a sore thumb.

"But he _was_ trouble," Fraser prompted.

"His dad was a real piece of work, a real wiseguy, so his mom had raised him, mostly, and she wasn't exactly a prize, either. But Danny, he..." Ray shook his head. "He was a little spoiled, and a lot naive--hadn't grown up in the middle of all that shit, didn't know that the name 'Langoustini' had about a three-day shelf life before they figured him out, before it stopped protecting him and started making him a target. And he sure didn't mind having the best booze and the prettiest girls and everyone kissing his ass as long as anyone was watching." _And you didn't mind that, either, did you, Vecchio?_ whispered a tiny sneering voice in his head, and Ray ignored it like he always did, pressed on, "But he was a hell of a lot smarter than most of the goons down there, had all this _potential_ , could've done _anything_ and his ma wants him to learn how many fingers you gotta break before your snitch rolls over..." Ray's own fingers tightened on his plate, the thin silver rim digging hard. The pain was immediate, focusing.

"You wanted to help him," Fraser said quietly. It wasn't a question.

"Well, of course I wanted to help him!" Ray burst out, his head snapping up. "He couldn't help who his dad was, and he was way too good for that place, and he was young enough not to know it, and Jesus, Fraser, you don't--" _You don't know what it was like there,_ he wanted to say, wanted to tell Fraser all of it--being scared down to his soul every single day, wondering is this gonna be it, the day I get caught, the day they ask me to do something I can't, the day I do it anyway 'cause I can't tell the difference anymore. But there were months and miles between them now, and who the hell knew what else.

"I thought it could be something good I could do," he said finally, when he'd bitten back the things he wasn't ready to let go of. "Something real, better than writing the name and hotel room of some big-money moron and leaving it in a designated garbage can. I just..." He sighed again. "I knew he was better than that."

No answer from Fraser, but Ray saw it in his face, and _yeah, Benny, even in Vegas, I couldn't get away from you_ , Ray thought ruefully. "Guess your Superman complex musta rubbed off on me," he said, because Fraser had come a long way and that much, Ray couldn't help giving him. Fraser smiled, the first real smile he'd manage all night, ducked his head on a half-shy huff of laughter and something squeezed hard in Ray's chest. "Wasn't as good at it as you were, though," he said hoarsely, feeling suddenly brittle and tired and sad; Fraser looked up with sympathy in his eyes that Ray didn't quite know how to defend against. Genuine wasn't all that common in Florida, either.

"I think maybe it's the hat." Fraser's voice was gentle, teasing, and it shocked a hysteria-tinged laugh out of Ray.

"You think so, huh?" he said, which was all he really _could_ say, because otherwise he was going to ask when the hell Fraser's sense of humor had gone up a few levels from "noticeable only when spending most of your waking hours with the guy" to "perceptible to the average human." But the laughter helped loosen the knot in his chest, let him go on, "I had to be careful not to get either of us on the radar, but I helped where I could, you know? A nudge here, a suggestion there. _Maybe respect is better than fear. Maybe you don't have to do things exactly the way your Uncle 'Mando does. Maybe this isn't the life for you._ But Vegas..." Ray lifted a shoulder. "Well, it's all about temptation. So he wasn't perfect, not by a long shot, but he was listening, I think. He was learning. And now..."

"And now he thinks you've betrayed him."

Ray nodded, rested his head on one hand. "And hell, I dunno, maybe I did."

"Ray--"

"I lied to him, didn't I?" Ray interrupted. "Every day for more than a year."

Fraser opened one hand on the table in front of him, palm-up. "That was your job, Ray; your life was at stake, not to mention the lives of others."

"Yeah, well." Ray shrugged impatiently. He'd been over this a million times in his head already, and all of a sudden he was done talking about it, about Danny and Vegas and questions that never had any right answers. "Enough about me, Fraser. What about you? What've you been up to?"

Fraser looked surprised at the abrupt subject change, but he answered anyway, "Ah. Well. A few months ago, I requested, and was granted, a posting in Fortitude Bay."

"Nice up there?" Ray asked, then, without waiting for Fraser to answer, "It's Canada, of course you think it's nice."

Fraser smiled, but there was something not quite right about it. "It's certainly very beautiful. Very..." He paused. "Peaceful," he said eventually.

"Peaceful sounds good," Ray said, watching Fraser's expression.

"And you," Fraser went on, proving he could do the topic-about-face just as well as Ray could. "You have a lovely home here."

"Thanks," Ray said. He looked around out of reflex, like it was new, like he didn't spend way too many hours there every day. "Stella picked a lot of it out, but she didn't want to haul it to D.C. with her, so." He shrugged. "She got a check, I got the house and the bowling alley."

"I'm sorry, Ray," Fraser said quietly. "About you and Stella, I mean."

Ray blew out a long breath. "Thanks. It was just... we were both trying too hard, I think. To have what... to have what we thought we wanted." He realized what he was saying and gave himself a mental shake. He'd forgotten that it was like that with Fraser, that he'd have your whole life story out of you before you knew it and never seem to be asking for anything. And there'd been a time when Ray had given him everything, and gladly, but now...

He looked up, met Fraser's eyes. "Hey, Fraser, I'm sorry, but it's been a long night, and I'm beat."

"Of course," Fraser said, pushing his chair back immediately. "I shouldn't have kept you."

"No, it was..." Jesus, this was like a conversational minefield. "I appreciate you coming all this way. It... means a lot." Ray turned his back self-consciously, took their two small plates to the sink.

"You're very welcome." Fraser stood, straightening his shirt like it was his uniform jacket. "And with your permission, I'd like to keep watch outside the house tonight."

Ray's jaw dropped. "Fraser, that's... you don't have to do that, geez. Look, Danny's made his point for the night, I'll be fine. Go get a hotel, get some sleep--you must be bushed, too."

"Ray--"

"I'm serious. Here, you can stay at the Edgewater, it's got a great view." Ray felt a pang of guilt at not offering to let Fraser stay with him, but he was tired and oddly raw and he wasn't sure he could handle having Fraser there all night, close enough to touch. He grabbed a pen and paper, scribbled down the address, then held it out to Fraser, who was standing there with the same look on his face that he used to get when Ray'd tried to convince him to bug out of work early every once in a while. "Fraser. I know this kid, all right? And I guarantee you, I'll be fine."

Fraser frowned, his eyes flicking back and forth between the paper and Ray's face, until he finally agreed, "All right, Ray, if you insist," still sounding unhappy as he followed Ray to the front door.

"Come by in the morning, I'll make you breakfast," Ray told him, the guilt still nagging.

"All right," Fraser repeated. He settled his hat on his head. "Good night, Ray."

"G'night." Then, just as Fraser's foot touched the top step, "Benny."

Fraser turned around. "Yes?"

"Thanks for coming," Ray said, feeling thick-headed and awkward, but needing to try anyway. "It's... it's good to have someone watching my back again, you know?" He hitched a shoulder. "It's, ah. Been a while."

Fraser licked his bottom lip, nodded once. "For me, too. Sleep well, Ray."

"Yeah," Ray said, "you too."

 

*****

 

About the fiftieth time he found himself staring at the bedside clock, willing the next number to blink into existence on the display, Ray accepted that sleeping well was basically out of the question. Between the insomnia and the nightmares, there weren't enough imaginary sheep in the world these days--it had driven Stella nuts, waking up in the middle of the night and finding him gone, sprawled out on the living room couch and staring at the TV with the sound off--and that had been _before_ he had an ex-pseudo-nephew with a taste for pyrotechnics in town. Not to mention his ex-partner (ex- _boyfriend_ , his brain insisted on clarifying) showing up out of nowhere like he hadn't fucked off to Canada with another guy half a year ago. Under the circumstances, Ray didn't have high hopes for sleep for quite a while.

So he sighed and slid out of bed, padded across the carpet in the dark to lift the edge of the thick curtain and peer out through the window. It was an old, paranoid habit, and he was only half paying attention until he realized--in the same shock-and-relief jolt he'd gone through earlier--first, that there was something out of place, and second, that it was Fraser's truck, parked outside his house like a small metal monument to Mountie stubbornness.

Ray snorted, shook his head. "The more things change, huh, Benny?"

Resigned, he ditched his silk pajamas in favor of jeans and a loose linen shirt, made his way down to the kitchen. Not long after that, he was slipping out the front door, a sealed thermos in each hand.

It was quiet outside, suburb-quiet, still stupidly humid and warm even though it was almost two o'clock in the morning and allegedly autumn. Fraser saw him coming, and Ray watched him cycle through embarrassment and defiance all the way into smooth unruffled Fraser-ness. Ray heard the locks on the doors click as he approached; he climbed into the passenger side and settled in, handing a thermos to Fraser.

"Thank you," Fraser said, a smile playing around the edges of his mouth. He unscrewed the top of the thermos and breathed deep, eyes closing as the aroma hit him. "Mmm. Chamomile." The smile was clear now. "Thank you, Ray."

Ray tipped his head back against the headrest. "I was fresh out of bark. Still two sugars, right?"

"Though it pains me to admit it, yes," Fraser said. Ray rolled his eyes.

"It's sugar, Benny, not heroin." That was his line, and the roof of the car might've been too high and the damp air tinged with salt instead of city smoke, but Ray knew Fraser's next line, too, _Actually, Ray_ \--

"Actually, Ray, sugar has been proven to be--"

And Ray couldn't take it anymore. "Fraser, what are we doing, here?"

Fraser glanced over at him, his face unreadable in the shadows from the streetlight. "I told you, I'm concerned for your safety."

"And I told you I appreciated that, and I also told you that I know this kid and he's done for tonight. But I'm not asking what _you're_ doing here--I shoulda had a countdown going from the second you stepped out the door. I'm asking what _we're_ doing here. You and me." When Fraser opened his mouth, Ray added, "And if you say 'drinking tea,' so help me I will call the nearest Canadian consulate and file a complaint about police brutality."

Fraser made a helpless gesture with his free hand. "I don't know what you want me to say."

Ray canted his body to face Fraser's, braced against the seat. "Months, I haven't heard from you, Fraser, _months_. Not a phone call, not a letter, not a carrier pigeon. And then all of a sudden you show up here, middle of the night, with the big eyes and the concerned face and we're sitting in this car like nothing's different and it is. It _is_ different." He'd had this speech building inside his head for weeks and now he was fuzzy and punch-drunk and it was all rolling out of him, snowballing. "You _left me_ in Chicago, Fraser."

"Left you?" Fraser repeated incredulously. "I was--you told me to go get my man!"

"Yeah, well, I didn't mean _Kowalski_!" That wasn't part of the speech, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Ray wanted them back, his heart pounding sickly in his chest. He didn't want to know, because suspicion was bad enough and he thought that knowing, actually _knowing_ , might be enough to finish him off.

Fraser just looked at him, his breathing going unsteady. "Ray needed me," he said finally, low. Ray couldn't tell if the edge in his voice was defense, accusation, or something else entirely.

" _He_ needed you? _I_ was the one with a nine-millimeter slug in my chest."

"Shoulder," Fraser pointed out quietly, and Ray stabbed a finger in his direction and snapped,

"No, you are not gonna do that. You are _not_ gonna change the subject."

Fraser flushed. "Well, what was I supposed to do, say, _no, I'm sorry, Ray, I'm going to leave you to fend for yourself in the Arctic?_ He's my friend, and he _needed_ me."

"Yeah, well, I _wanted_ you, you moron, did you ever think of that?" Ray snapped.

And he could see the shock of it hit Fraser's face and settle there, but he recovered quickly. "Ray, that was the second time in the course of our partnership you were lying in a hospital with--as you were kind enough to remind me just now--a bullet in your body. A bullet which, in both cases, had been intended for me."

"Oh, so you left to protect me? Come on, Fraser, I spent a year and a half surrounded by goons who would've killed me as slowly and inventively as possible if I'd said one wrong word. Tends to give a guy a pretty thick skin."

"Thick, yes," Fraser agreed, "but evidently not bulletproof, and in any case, I was assured that you were resting quite comfortably in the devoted care of State's Attorney Kowalski." The last words were sharp, all clipped consonants and the deliberate snap of Fraser's tongue against his teeth.

Now it was Ray's turn to blush. "I was hopped up on pain medication!" he blurted out defensively, then felt his face heat even more. Stella would've kicked his ass for that comment. _He_ wanted to kick his ass for it. He took a deep breath, tried again. "Look, I was confused, all right? Kowalski was there, you were gone, everything was upside-down, and Stella... Stella's a knockout, and classy, and she's got great legs and a great laugh and I figured I'd be pretty dumb to turn down a shot with a woman like her just in case my ex decided to crawl out of whatever sleeping bag he was snuggled up in with _her_ ex and head back down across the border."

Fraser made a frustrated noise. "Crawl out of... Ray, it wasn't like that."

"Oh, yeah?" Ray shot back. "Please, Benny, tell me what it was like. You got such a great memory, I wanna hear all the dirty details." It hurt, coming out of his tight throat, but he couldn't seem to keep his mouth shut.

Fraser's knuckles were white on the hand that was wrapped around the thermos. He turned his head so that Ray couldn't see his face, just dark hair that was a little too long at the back of his neck. Ray's fingers itched with the memory of it. "I won't deny that my friendship with Ray was... not entirely without attraction on both sides."

Ray closed his eyes against the twisting, heavy nausea in his stomach, let himself fall back against the seat. _Just_ had to ask, didn't you, Vecchio, you stupid fuck? he berated himself. Christ, at this rate he might as well just let Danny put him out of his misery.

"But," Fraser went on, his voice quiet but clear in the small space, "he was first and last my friend, and a very good one."

Ray's eyes blinked open again. That wasn't the response he'd been expecting. "All right," he said carefully, after he'd turned over the possible implications of that for a while. "You wanna translate that for me?"

Fraser shifted uncomfortably. "Ray--"

"Look, I know that this is between you and him, and I respect that, I really do. But I'm not exactly a disinterested bystander, here, and I..." He swallowed. "You've gotta give me a clue or something, okay?"

The line of Fraser's shoulders was tense, but after a few seconds, he sighed. "Ray and I went up north friends, we remained friends, and we parted friends. At least, I still consider him my friend." He cocked his head slightly. "I can't be entirely sure he feels the same way about me."

Ray's first reaction was relief. Desperate, selfish, overwhelming relief, making him light-headed. But Fraser's silence was heavy in comparison, and Ray couldn't help offering, "Whatever happened, Benny, I'm sure he's still your friend." He let himself smile a little. "You aren't the kind of guy that people let go of too easy."

Fraser rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. "I failed him, I think. He wanted adventure and self-discovery and all I could seem to provide was frostbite and the constant threat of hypothermia." He sounded wry and rueful, and if he hadn't also sounded miserable, Ray would've been tempted to laugh.

Instead he thought about Kowalski, about the lost look in his eyes like an open wound, there in the bullpen, the look that Ray hadn't been able to help responding to, either, despite how he'd been more than ready to punch Kowalski's lights out about three seconds before that. Then he thought about what it would be like to trail after Fraser in the frozen north, and shook his head. Jesus, Canada had hated him enough in the middle of summer--he didn't know anyone outside of Fraser who would've had a prayer of figuring _anything_ out up there in the snow. But he didn't think Fraser was going to listen to any arguments about the _self_ part of _self-discovery_ , so. "He's back in Chicago now, you said?"

"Yes, I believe so."

Ray spared a second to think that Frannie could have _mentioned_ that, somewhere in all her endless gossip about everyone in the greater Chicago area, but--"That's good. It'll be good for him to be home. After you've been under, you gotta have stuff you know around you, help you find your way back." He was parroting the counseling he'd been given as part of his re-entry, and it didn't really hit him what he was saying until he realized that Fraser was looking at him, one eyebrow raised. He glanced away, out across his perfectly manicured lawn. "Don't give me that look. It's not the same for everybody."

"All right," Fraser answered mildly, in that humor-the-delusional-American tone he had.

"Fraser--"

Fraser held up a placating hand. "I said all right." He nodded toward the thermos in Ray's hand. "Are you going to drink that?"

"Yeah," Ray said, feeling inside-out and even more exhausted than before. "Yeah, I am." He unscrewed the cap and took a careful sip; his water had a lot less chamomile and a lot more whiskey in it than Fraser's did, but Fraser didn't need to know that. The warm liquid slithered down his throat, spread heat into his stomach. His eyelids were starting to feel heavy.

"Glenlivet?" Fraser asked.

"Shut up," Ray muttered, but he was smiling. He took another drink, then put the cap back on. "Okay, here's the deal. Since you're obviously not going to go find a hotel like any sane, rational person would do, I'm not gonna let you sleep in your car when I've got a few thousand square feet in there going to waste."

"Oh, but Ray, I wouldn't want to--"

"I'd rather you impose on my couch than my sidewalk, Benny, so quit arguing."

Fraser opened his mouth, closed it, then nodded once. "Well, I suppose I can hardly refuse such a gracious offer, can I?"

"You're a funny guy, Fraser. I forgot how funny you were," Ray said, reaching for the door handle, and out of the corner of his eye, he could just see the tiny smile on Fraser's face.

 

*****

 

"Are you sure you don't mind?" Fraser asked for the fourth or fifth time, stretched out on the couch with a blanket tossed over him. He'd originally suggested that he could just stake out a spot on the floor; Ray had been tempted to call his bluff except that Ray knew that he was waking up with new aches of his own these days, pillow-top mattress or no, and as much as Fraser wanted everyone to believe he was invincible, Ray knew better. And besides, Father Time had a way of smacking everyone upside the head with his scythe eventually.

Even if Fraser didn't look all that different than when he'd waltzed in and messed up Ray's entrapping (and entrapment, but who was counting) all those years ago. You'd think all that superhero stuff would catch up to a guy at some point, but aside from a few new lines at the corners of his eyes, Fraser didn't seem to be showing a lot of wear and tear.

Ray looked at the long lines of Fraser's body underneath the blanket and tried not to think about testing that theory with a more in-depth investigation.

"Ray?" Fraser repeated softly, and when Ray let his eyes slide back up to Fraser's face, the subtle, hesitant invitation in Fraser's dark eyes and parted lips was enough to send Ray's pulse spiking.

"I didn't know about Vegas," Ray said suddenly. "I mean, I signed up for it years ago. Before I even met you. Angie'd been gone a few years, and I was... drifting, and..." He shrugged. "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

"It took courage to volunteer for something like that," said Fraser.

Ray huffed a laugh. "Nah. Volunteering just took not knowing what the hell I was getting myself into, and not really caring. But actually _going_..." He could still remember every stupid detail of the scene: the Feds in their crisp suits, sitting in Welsh's office with the blinds closed, Welsh telling him grimly, _You still got a choice, here, Vecchio, you can still say no_ , and all Ray could do was try to count days in his head, whether it took longer to prep a cop to give up his life than it took a Mountie to find his way back from putting the fear of God into litterbugs. "I'm so sorry, Benny. You gotta know--if I'd had any other choice--"

"I know, Ray." Fraser was watching him steadily. "I know."

Only he didn't know, not everything, not just the goodbye but everything that had come after, everything Ray--the Bookman--had said and done and _been_. And Ray didn't know how he could tell him.

He dropped his eyes to the carpet at his feet. "I was so fucking happy with you, Benny," he said quietly, helplessly. "Never been happier in my life."

"Ray--" Fraser started, and Ray knew that if he stuck around to hear the rest of it, he wasn't going to be able to say no.

"I just wanted you to know," he said, fighting to keep his hands loose at his sides. He forced himself not to look back as he turned around and left the room.

 

*****

 

Control was easier in the bright, unforgiving Florida sun; between that and the creeping sense of the clock ticking, Ray managed to keep his mind mostly on the task at hand, with only a stray thought or two for how the sweat beaded at Fraser's upper lip or how the soft fabric of his off-duty shirt stretched smooth over his back and shoulders. But Ray'd spent months in the past ignoring exactly that kind of thing, so it wasn't so difficult to slip back into old patterns--he just had to make sure he slipped back into the right ones. Unfortunately, despite his focus, Fraser's support, and every unofficial contact Ray could think of, they were still coming up empty on anything relating to Danny Langoustini.

"Geez, this was a hell of a lot easier when I had a badge," Ray complained, taking a slurp of iced coffee on the afternoon of the second day.

"Well, I could--"

"No," Ray interrupted. "No big red target, Benny, I told you. I don't want to attract that kind of attention." Not that Fraser wasn't attracting attention as it was; the old retired ladies were already whispering about him, and the silicone beach bunnies were sharpening their claws, maneuvering for position. It might have been funny under other circumstances--north or south, Fraser was still Fraser, apparently--but as it was, it was just adding to Ray's laundry list of worries.

"All right," Fraser went on, "then you could--"

"I'm not asking Welsh for help, either. It's out of his jurisdiction, which means he'd be calling in favors, which means locals that I got no relationship with except the guys who come in for league night on Wednesdays, and even them, I mostly just know their shoe size." Everywhere Ray'd gone his whole life, he'd always reached out to people by instinct--you grew up in a house with the population of a small country, you learned to be social. Here, though, he'd deliberately kept his acquaintances casual and his ties loose for once, and now he could count his resources on one hand. He scrubbed at the short fuzz on his head. "No, too many variables there, I can't risk it. Not without at least talking to Danny first."

Fraser didn't answer, but his fingers drummed along his water glass, saying what his mouth wasn't. That this was colossally stupid, that it was possibly going to get them both hurt or killed, and that it was pretty much exactly what Fraser had done in a hundred similar situations, so he should shut the hell up about it.

Okay, that last part was probably mostly Ray.

Before he could go any further with that train of thought, though, his eyes fell on the wide gold watch at his wrist. "Damn," he hissed. "Is this Wednesday?" When Fraser nodded, Ray winced. " _Damn_. It's family dinner night at my Aunt Sylvia's."

"Are you sure that's wise, under the circumstances?" Fraser asked.

"Wiser than trying to weasel out of it." Ray snorted. "You know my ma when it comes to family dinners? Well, my Aunt Sylvia makes her look like a shrinking violet."

Fraser smiled, obviously getting a kick out of the mental image, and Ray smiled with him. But almost immediately, Fraser's face clouded again. "Ray, I wasn't aware that you had relatives in this immediate area. They'll be in danger--in a city this small, discovering their connection to you would be a matter of a couple of well-placed questions."

Ray nudged his foot under the table without thinking-- _whoops, wrong old habit_ , he thought, feeling his neck heat--but covered it with a grin. "Nah, that's the one piece of good luck in all of this. My Uncle Nunzio's an ex-cop; not much gets by him. In fact, maybe you should think about staying over there--you'd probably be safer."

"I'll take that under consideration," Fraser replied, and only the faint glint in his eyes told Ray he was teasing.

"So," Ray said as he sat back in his chair, plotting out the route in his mind. Maybe it would do him good to take a break anyway, even if that break came in the form of half a dozen overeager nieces and nephews. "I'll swing by my place, drop you off, and then--" He stopped, catching the look on Fraser's face. "What?"

Fraser blinked innocently. "Nothing."

" _Fraser._ "

"It's nothing."

Ray waited. And after a short pause, sure enough,

"It's just--if you don't want me to have dinner with your family, Ray, I--"

"Hey," Ray said, "I know you're a sackcloth-and-ashes kind of guy, but you can't seriously be volunteering for this. It's like an insane asylum over there, only the inmates are small enough to hide under your chair. Trust me, you don't want any part of it--run while you still can, save yourself."

Fraser smiled, like Ray'd hoped he would, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Ray..." He hesitated, then pushed on, "Fortitude Bay is a small outpost, very remote. And while I realize that I have historically valued solitude as a means to necessary meditation and reflection, and while I do, in fact, still require it often, probably more often than the average man, though of course in this case the averages would be difficult to calculate..."

He trailed off, and Ray narrowed his eyes at his friend. Usually, the more syllables Fraser used, the more reluctant he was to say something. Ray reached out with his toe again, rested it against the side of Fraser's boot. "Little lonely at the top these days, Benny?" he asked, trying to keep it as light and gentle as he could.

And that was Fraser's typical cue to launch into some complicated metaphor about wolves or seals or ptarmigans, but instead, he just swallowed hard, looked Ray dead in the eye, and said, "Yes."

It was Ray's turn to blink, letting that sink in; he'd complained a million times that he wished Fraser would stop dancing around things and just _say_ them, but maybe this was why he didn't--this was some serious blunt force trauma, here, and Ray was reeling. "Okay," he said, when he could manage it. "Okay. I'll call my Aunt Sylvia, tell her I'm bringing a friend."

Fraser grinned, wide and bright. "Thank you, Ray." Then, "Of course, I would hate to take advantage of your aunt's good will, so if it's going to be any inconvenience at all--"

Ray glared, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "Don't push your luck, Benny."

"Understood," Fraser said instantly, and sat back in his chair, still grinning.

 

*****

 

"Raimundo!" his aunt greeted him when she opened the door, throwing her arms around him like it had been seven years since she'd seen him instead of seven days. One of Ray's nieces was already tugging on his hand even as he patted Sylvia on her broad back.

"Uncle Ray, Uncle Ray, come see my new train set!" Technically, Ariana was his first cousin once removed, but that was a mouthful when you were talking eight kids on a light day and so they pretty much called everyone under eighteen "niece" or "nephew" and anyone adult "uncle" or "aunt" and it all worked out all right

"In a minute, _bellezza_ ," Ray told her, tousling her hair until she giggled. "Aunt Sylvia," he went on, turning to indicate Fraser, "this is--"

"Benton, Benton, welcome, so good to finally meet you!" Sylvia launched herself at Fraser with every bit as much enthusiasm as she'd had for Ray. Fraser looked a little like he'd been smacked on the back of the head with a maple branch, but he didn't exactly look unhappy, either, and anyway, he'd asked for it, so Ray just stood back and watched.

Sylvia pulled back just far enough to take Fraser's face between her hands. "Such a handsome boy you are; the pictures Francesca sent didn't do you justice."

"Thank you," Fraser said, a brief flash of horror crossing his face--and Ray was completely on board with that sentiment, incidentally--at the thought of what kind of pictures Frannie might have taken of him back in the day. "I--"

"And such a sweet boy, being such a good friend to our Raimundo. My sister has thanked the good Lord for you many times, Benton."

Fraser's neck went red, but a pleased smile spread across his face. "And I do the same for her, ma'am," he said, inclining his head, and Sylvia practically swooned on the spot. Ray was so busy grinning at both of them it took Ariana jumping up and down and yanking on his hand with all her weight before she got his attention.

"Uncle Ray, my _traaaaaain._ "

"Okay, kiddo, let's see it," Ray told her, and she squealed with delight.

Ray got the full tour of not just the train, but the entire village that accompanied it, and he lost track of Fraser for a while, at least until Ariana insisted that "Mr. Mountie" help Ray complete the inspection of the village cattle pasture.

When Ariana dragged Fraser into the playroom, he was flushed and bright-eyed, a piece of yellow yarn dangling from his hair in the back, and he was asking Ariana very seriously how she'd determined the necessary grazing space for a herd of plastic cattle. Ariana tugged Fraser down to sit next to her on the floor and embarked on an explanation that involved some kind of multiplication of each cow's legs by its number of stomachs--and Ray gave the kid credit, she knew her multiplication tables--while Fraser looked at Ray over her dark head and smiled, as relaxed as Ray had seen him since... well, Ray didn't really feel right thinking about that in front of his niece.

The problem was, though, he would've bet money that Fraser was thinking about it, too, judging by the quick spark of heat in his eyes, and Ray reached out without thinking, toward Fraser's hand where it was braced on the floor behind Ariana's back. He trailed his fingertips lightly across the backs of Fraser's strong fingers, watched Fraser's eyes widen and go dark while Ariana chattered away, having moved on to something about the sheep now. It felt like every nerve Ray had was tingling, the heat of Fraser's skin radiating into his, and he was just opening his mouth to say something when Sylvia bustled through the doorway behind them.

"Raimundo, there's a friend of yours here to see you," and Ray felt like a trap door had opened underneath him. He turned around with sudden, sick certainty and sure enough, there was Danny, Ferragamo loafers on the dirty indoor-outdoor carpet and Ray could've sworn his heart actually stopped beating for a second.

Fraser got to his feet immediately. "Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police," he said pointedly to Danny, holding out his hand.

Danny took it with a razor smile that went right to Ray's heart. God, the kid was halfway gone already. "Nice to meet you, Constable." Extra emphasis on the last word, and an eyebrow barely cocked in Ray's direction. "Hey, Uncle 'Mando. You're looking good."

Cold thudded into Ray's stomach and settled there, and Sylvia was looking back and forth between him and Danny, her head tilted uncertainly. "Old joke," Ray explained to her, trying to keep his hands from shaking as he stood up and shooed Ariana gently toward the door. "Fraser and I gotta talk to Danny for a few minutes, okay?"

"But the sheep--" Ariana started.

"We'll take good care of them in your absence," Fraser assured her, never taking his eyes from Danny's face, and Ray had to lock his knees against the heady rush of relief when Ariana and Sylvia made it safely out the door, closing it behind them.

In seconds, Ray had Danny up against the wall, forearm across his throat, red rage smearing his vision. "You wanna mess with me, that's one thing," he hissed, "but you so much as fucking _touch_ one of them and I'll kill you myself and enjoy every second of it." His own breath was harsh in his ears.

Danny just grinned. "Good to... see you, too, Uncle 'Mando," he wheezed around the pressure of Ray's arm.

"It's _Vecchio_ , and you know it," Ray gritted. Christ, Danny even _smelled_ like Vegas, good cologne, good cigars, good liquor. The sense memory closed in around him, stifling. He kept Danny pinned tight against the wall with the arm pressed against his chest, but forced himself to let up on the throat a little bit, struggling for control. He could feel Fraser's eyes on him. "Armando Langoustini's been dead for years, kid. You never even knew him."

"Not so sure about that," Danny answered, gulping air. "You did a hell of an imitation, Vecchio."

"Shut up." Ray blinked, trying to clear his vision. "It doesn't have to be like this, Danny--"

"You looked pretty close to Dudley Do-Right over there," Danny went on, relentless. "Does he know just how good a job you did? How about Lila Palmero? He know about her?" His expression was cracking just the tiniest bit now; emotion roiling underneath the smooth facade, but he just kept talking. "Or, I know, how about Vinnie the Vole? You tell him how you--"

All the leverage, and Ray was the one who couldn't breathe. Desperate, he slammed Danny against the wall again, vicious relief as the air punched out of him, drowning his words. "Shut the fuck _up_ ," Ray repeated, "or I swear to God--"

"You're not gonna do a damn thing to me," Danny sneered. His dark eyes were cold. "You remember Tiny, right?"

Ray's heart sank. _Fuck._ He'd been out of the game too long and this had been so fucking stupid, coming here, might as well have painted targets on all their chests.

Danny cocked his head smugly. "Well, he's parked across the street and he's brought a few of his closest friends along with him, and if I don't walk out of here safe and sound in the next two minutes, he's gonna come looking for me." He shook his head. "Lotta kids between here and the door, Vecchio. You really want to take that chance?"

"What the fuck do you _want_ , Danny?" Ray asked. "Whatever it is, it's between you and me--leave my family out of it."

"You _were_ my family," Danny shot back, hurt fountaining out of him and, from the look on his face, shocking him as much as it shocked Ray.

Ray eased back automatically; the hand fisted in Danny's shirt flattened out to press against his shoulder. "Danny--"

But Danny just took advantage of his distraction to shove him back, hard. "Don't fucking patronize me, Vecchio, I don't have to listen to it anymore." He smoothed the fine, wrinkled fabric of his shirt, took a couple of long breaths. "Well. I think that's enough chitchat for one day."

Ray dropped his hands to his sides, adrenaline surging through him, frustrated and useless. "If you come near my family again, I don't care who you got waiting outside--I'll get to them when I'm through with you."

Danny's mouth quirked up in an unsteady smirk. "I'll be in touch. Pleasure meeting you," he added to Fraser as he made his way toward the door.

"I'd leave quickly if I were you," Fraser answered calmly. He was at parade rest, his hands clenched tight behind him. Ray could see a muscle jumping in his jaw.

Danny let out a short, sharp laugh, then opened the door and walked out.

It was a straight shot from the playroom to the front door; Ray watched until the younger man was gone. He had just enough time for one quick glance at Fraser--who was watching him intently, his expression shuttered and unreadable, even to Ray--before Sylvia came rushing back in, wide-eyed and pale, and Ray told her, "Go call Uncle Nunzio," in a voice that hardly shook at all.

 

*****

 

Fraser drove on the way back to Ray's house; it wasn't so much a decision as it was that Ray headed for the passenger seat and Fraser headed toward the driver's seat and after that Ray was pretty occupied with trying not to throw up. Neither of them said a word the entire ride, and the more time passed, the more Ray found he didn't want to meet Fraser's eyes, afraid of what he'd see. Everything felt muffled and indistinct, the bright tourist colors blurring in the dusk as Ray stared out the window, and it took Fraser reaching over and touching Ray's shoulder for Ray to realize they'd stopped.

He flinched away from Fraser's fingers, half-convinced he was going to rub off somehow. "Oh. Sorry." He climbed woodenly out of the car, stumbled into the house still in the strange, disjointed state that he distantly recognized as shock. Danny could be there, he guessed, could've brought his friends, but Fraser would be fine and Ray would, at least, be _done_ , and he collapsed on the couch, his head hanging between his knees.

At some indefinable point later, he felt weight sinking down next to him, heard the plink of a glass on the coffee table.

"Ray," Fraser said, "you should drink some water."

Ray bit his lip on a hysterical laugh, so that only the first couple of notes escaped. "Fraser. I'm not really sure that water is going to help in this situation." Tremors were starting to run through his body now, twisting and random.

"Well, it certainly can't _hurt_ ," Fraser pointed out, and Ray shook his head--seemed like a stupid thing to argue about--and reached for the glass.

"I just," he said when it was halfway to his mouth. "I thought I was doing something good."

"You were," Fraser said quietly.

Ray shook his head again. "Fraser, you don't even--" He put the glass down carefully, on a coaster, and twisted his cold, wet fingers together. "Look, it doesn't matter, okay? Just forget it."

_"Ray."_

"What?" Ray pushed up off the couch; Fraser was too close, too much, Ray couldn't _breathe_. "Trust me, Fraser, you don't want to hear this."

"I _do_ trust you," Fraser answered, "and that's why I can't imagine anything you could say that would--"

"Well, then your imagination sucks," Ray interrupted, rounding on him, abruptly furious with Fraser's stubborn optimism and his fucking delusionally misplaced trust. "Because lemme tell you, a guy like Langoustini's got a rep to uphold, and you can get pretty far on that rep, make the flunkies sweat with threats and hints and a little fake blood here and there, but people start noticing if you never follow through on those threats, and then people start dying, so you gotta pick and choose, right?" Fraser's face stayed open and calm; it was like throwing rocks into quicksand, made Ray want to throw harder. "So one day you hit somebody. Big guy, he can take it, no big deal. And maybe the next guy you have to hit isn't so big, but that's okay, too--nothing that won't heal up. But then you blink and you're standing there listening to somebody scream while they're breaking his fingers and you're thinking at least he's gonna live, because the real Bookman would've cut him to ribbons and _that_ was my _life_ , Benny, lesser of fifty evils, and now I fucked up with Danny, too, and for what?" He held his arms out to either side. "For a few names in a dead drop? Jesus _Christ_."

Fraser spread his hands in front of him. "Ray, you were in an extremely dangerous position, and I'm sure you made the best decisions you could under the circumstances."

"Fraser, are you even listening to me?" Ray asked, incredulous. "I gotta live with this stuff the rest of my life, knowing what I did, I gave up _everything_ for this, and for _nothing_ \--" He couldn't face Fraser's eyes anymore, swung away to stand by the nearest window, staring out into the humid Florida night. "I can't do this, Benny," he said finally, softly, "I don't know what to do with all of this--" and then Fraser was up off the couch, crossing the room to wrap his arms around Ray from behind, pulling Ray back against his chest, his heartbeat thumping into Ray's back. And Ray knew he should go, because his life was fucked and there was no point at all in dragging Fraser down with him. But he was tired and terrified and so damn tired of being terrified, and he'd almost cracked a hundred times down there in the desert, almost picked up a pay phone and dialed the Canadian Consulate just to hear a few words in a familiar voice, and now Fraser was here and solid and warm and Ray was sure as hell no saint, and he turned in Fraser's arms and kissed him.

Fraser made a soft sound and opened against him eagerly, strong fingers cradling the back of Ray's head, pulling him closer. He tasted exactly like Ray remembered, _felt_ exactly like Ray remembered, the hard, muscled length of him pressed all along Ray's body, the slick sweetness of his tongue in Ray's mouth, and for a few seconds Ray let himself believe it, that none of it had happened, that they could do this for real this time. He sank one hand into Fraser's thick hair, used the other hand to trace the shifting planes of his back as they strained against each other, trying to get closer still. Ray was rock-hard and starving and he couldn't think, didn't want to, but then Fraser dragged his mouth away long enough to gasp, "Oh, God, _Ray_ ," damp and desperate against Ray's ear, and hearing his own name was like a shock of cold water; Ray's stomach lurched and he pushed Fraser away.

They both stood there for a minute, their ragged breathing loud in the dim room. "You know, Ray," Fraser said finally. His mouth was wet and swollen. "In my experience, the world doesn't make a habit of offering us many second chances. It seems disrespectful to waste one."

Ray closed his eyes, trying to form words through the spreading ache in his chest. "I think in order for it to count as a second chance," he said, "you gotta be the same guy who got the first one."

 

*****

 

Ray thought he hated the next morning, the awkward silence and avoidance, but that was only because he didn't know how bad the afternoon was going to be.

"He said come alone, I'm going alone," he ended up saying stubbornly, checking and re-checking his Glock, his extra clips. Five minutes already since the call, and Danny had given him twenty.

"I can't let you do that, Ray."

" _Let_ me?" Ray let out a short, incredulous laugh. "I don't really see that you got much choice in the matter."

"Perhaps you've forgotten that one of my areas of expertise is tracking," Fraser said, cool in the way that Ray knew meant he was seething inside. "And under the circumstances, I don't think you're going to get much of a head start."

" _Dammit_ , Fraser, I don't have time to argue with you about this!" Ray shouted.

"Then don't," Fraser replied. "I'll follow at a safe distance, stay out of sight."

Ray hesitated. Fraser was not the most subtle guy in general, but when it mattered... "Fine," he said, because every second he stood here arguing with Fraser was another second someone in his family could be in danger. "But no hero stuff, Fraser, you got it? He sees you, who knows what he'll do."

"Understood." The response was quick and military sharp, and Ray made straight for the door, not sure whether to be more worried or grateful.

Worried would've been a good choice, as it turned out; Ray got to the meeting place with seconds to spare, instantly picked out the right bench among the row stretched out along the boardwalk and half-walked, half-jogged toward it, eyes scanning the area, the stock of his gun snugged comfortingly into his hand. Fraser, true to his word, was parked a block or so away, waiting.

As Ray drew closer, he could see the bench was empty. "What the _fuck_ ," he muttered, tense and furious; there was no way he could've misunderstood the directions, was there? Then something caught his eye, a small, smooth box nestled up against the back leg of the bench. Ray grabbed it, swearing over the simple lock--no key, and he lost more precious time while he fumbled with his lockpick--until finally the thin metal gave and he tipped the box's contents out into his hand.

Another ceramic iguana, this one with a wrinkled piece of paper tucked into its tail. Ray unrolled it, stared at it while dread curled tighter in his stomach. It was a map of the town, a warehouse on the outskirts marked with a mocking red "X."

"Son of a _bitch_ ," Ray hissed, scandalizing a group of old ladies nearby. Danny was playing fucking _games_ with him, and what the hell was the...

And then it clicked.

He braced himself with one hand on the bench, levered himself to standing, heart pounding hard in his chest as he scanned the nearby streets, willing himself to be wrong. But sure enough, there it was: Fraser's truck, empty, with the door standing open in silent accusation.

"Son of a _bitch_ ," Ray yelled again, hurling the box and the figurine back to the ground, and took off running toward his car.

 

*****

 

As soon Ray burst into the warehouse, Danny was ready for him, gun arm swinging up in a smooth, practiced motion. "Detective Vecchio," he said, sneering emphasis on the title. "About time you showed up."

Ray catalogued the space automatically, his brain noting details even as his heart was in his throat. Danny must've had help at some point, but they were nowhere in sight; the door Ray had used was the only exit, and there was mainly dust and a few scraps on the floor, nothing that could be used as a weapon. Fraser was there, a dozen yards away--his face was bruised, but he was awake and struggling, tied hand and foot to a chair and gagged for good measure.

"Fraser?" Ray called out, and Fraser nodded once, his eyes intent and steady over the gag. So he was all right. So far. And one thing about his off-duty clothes was that they tended to show telltale blood a hell of a lot better than the serge, but they seemed to be mostly streaked with dirt, and Ray's speeding pulse slowed fractionally.

 _Okay,_ he told himself, _think, Vecchio, we can still do this..._

"What do you want, Danny?" he asked aloud, holding his hands up in front of him, palm-out. "Just tell me what you want and nobody has to get hurt."

"But what if what I want _is_ for you to get hurt?" Danny asked, his mouth twisting. It hurt Ray's heart to see it, that vicious expression on the face he'd seen relaxed in cheerful laughter dozens of times. Something was different here, and it wasn't just time.

"Danny," he said evenly, realizing the question he should've asked the day before. "What the hell happened when I left?"

Danny's laugh was short and bitter. "Well," he said, "it's funny you should mention that. See, it turns out it's not such great publicity for a family to have an undercover cop coming to all their secret meetings. Tends to make the guys a little twitchy."

"Danny--"

Danny's free arm swung out, a reckless arc through the air. "Hasn't been real fun around the old homestead lately, I gotta tell you. And if you were the guy who spent the most time with the undercover cop, if you were the guy who was supposed to be smart enough to figure out his own _uncle_ was a fake..." Danny's eyes clouded, and he flinched, barely noticeably, but Ray read it like a flashing neon sign.

 _Fuck._ Ray'd been so anxious to leave all that shit behind him that he'd just swallowed the assurances the Feds had given him, hadn't even _questioned_ \-- "Fuck, Danny, I thought you'd get the hell out of there, I didn't know, I didn't even _think_ \--"

"So I gotta prove myself, right?" Danny went on, ignoring him. "I figure if I kill you, bring back your head on a platter, I get back on the inside."

"Then let him go," Ray said immediately, jerking his head in Fraser's direction. "You got me, you don't need him."

"Well, no," Danny admitted, that dark, ugly twist on his face again, "that part's just kind of for fun. You fucked up my life, I fuck up yours. Seems like a pretty fair trade, don't you think?"

Ray shook his head, disbelieving. "Jesus, Danny, listen to yourself. You sound like every two-bit con man who's watched too many movies." He gritted his teeth, willing Danny to hear him. "Why the hell do you think I spent so much time with you in Vegas, huh? That wasn't in my job description. I did it because I liked you, because I saw that you were better than that place, and I _know_ you, man. You don't need this. You're so much better than this."

"I'm _exactly_ good enough for this," Danny insisted. Ray could see the faint tremor of the gun in his hand; his eyes were wild. "I don't need you to save me, U--" and he caught himself, corrected, " _Vecchio._ I'm not that guy anymore."

"Of course you're that guy," said Ray, and in spite of everything, a tiny thread of affection spiraled through the tension, tugging at him. "What, you think you stop being who you are just because--" His own words caught up to him like a two-by-four, and he risked a split-second glance at Fraser. Even ringed by bruises, Fraser's eyes were clear, steady blue, and Ray felt something give and snap inside his chest, flooding him with a kind of crazy, calm certainty that he suspected Fraser would've understood perfectly.

"You can do whatever you want," he said, taking one slow step forward, then another. "Shoot Fraser, shoot me, go back and shoot whoever else you gotta shoot to put the fear back in the Iguana family name, have Vegas spread out at your feet like the whore she is." He was closer now; Danny's muscles were trembling but he still had his trigger finger extended along the barrel of the gun, not committed yet. Ray kept going. "That's not gonna change the fact that there was a time in your life when you _knew_ , down in your soul, that you could be more. And if you don't have the balls to admit it..." He stopped a couple of feet from the gun's barrel, held his arms out to either side and looked Danny straight in the eye. "Kiddo, that ain't anybody's fault but your own."

For a long, breathless moment, none of them moved. Ray could hear faint noises trickling through from the outside, laughter and cars passing. His heart was thudding in his ears. Finally, Danny dropped the gun a fraction of an inch.

"I don't know what to do," he said, sounding suddenly, painfully young. "It's bad enough when they can't prove it... if I go up against them in the open, they'll kill me."

"The Feds have plants all over that town," Ray told him, "and half of 'em owe me favors. I can get you protection."

"In exchange for what?" Danny asked, wary.

Ray shrugged. "Whatever you want to give."

Danny's eyes flicked to Fraser. "I kidnapped your partner."

"He's--" _not my partner anymore_ , Ray started to say automatically, then looked over, himself, and only Fraser could be gagged and tied to a chair and half an inch from getting his head blown off and _still_ manage an eloquently raised eyebrow. "He's a fast healer," Ray said instead.

Danny hesitated, then lowered the gun a little more. "I burned down your bowling alley," he went on, and Ray could see the corners of his mouth twitching, hear the slight quaver of hysteria in his voice.

Ray smiled. "Are you kidding me? I hated that place. Seven hundred pairs of shoes and not a one of 'em worth wearing. You did me a favor."

Danny's mouth curved, giving in to the absurdity, but he still didn't drop his arm to his side. "How do I know you're not gonna call the cops as soon as I walk out of here?"

"Look, I know you don't have a lot of reason to trust me right now, but if I was gonna call the cops on you, don't you think I'd have done it before now?" Ray pointed out. "Kid, I _was_ a cop--all I'd've had to do was make one phone call and there wouldn't have been any place for you to hide. In fact, my old Lieu from Chicago was on the phone to me every day for the last week, begging me to make that call. But I didn't." He watched the conflict on Danny's face, watched the logic of it start to work on him. "Besides," he added, "I got something riding on this, too--how do I know you're not gonna come after my family again?" He lifted a shoulder. "We both got cards in the hole, here, Danny. So the question is, are you gonna call, or are you gonna fold?"

Another silence, long and teetering, and then eventually Danny's breath hissed out of him and he let his gun arm drop completely. Out of the corner of his eye, Ray could see Fraser relax, the almost imperceptible slump against the ropes. Ray took a deep breath, himself.

"So what happens next?" Danny asked, his eyes trained on the ground in front of him.

"Lay low," Ray said. "Go home, take a vacation, whatever, but look around. And if you decide you want to start making some changes, well, you know where to find me."

Danny cocked his head at him. "You're really just gonna let me go?"

"Yeah," Ray said simply. "Yeah, I am."

Danny took another long, slow breath, before he tucked the gun into its holster, looked at Ray. "If I find out you're lying again, I swear--"

"Hey," Ray said, holding his arms out again, making an easy target. "In that case, I'd let you." He hesitated, then, "For what it's worth, it drove me nuts, having to lie to you. And leaving you like that--in the middle of everything like that, and not checking up on you..." He winced. "I'm an asshole for that, and I'm sorry."

Danny's eyes went wide, and he didn't answer right away. "Okay, then," he said eventually. And nodded, looking dazed but determined. "Okay. So." His shoulders straightened, and he spoke clearly, deliberately. "Goodbye, Ray."

And it wasn't just a thread of affection this time, it was a whole damn tapestry. "'See you around, Danny." _Under very different circumstances, I hope_ , he added silently, but Danny just nodded once more, turned on his heel, and left the warehouse.

Ray crossed quickly to Fraser, tugged the gag down out of his mouth with gentle hands. Fraser stretched his jaw and lips, grimacing at the taste. "Thank you. I'm not sure the previous owner of that fabric was particularly keen on personal hygiene."

"Kids these days," Ray deadpanned, shaking his head. "Can't even find a clean cloth to gag you with."

Fraser looked up at him then, warmth in every line of his face. "You handled that extremely well, Ray," he said. "This was a better outcome than I'd dared to hope for."

"Yeah, well." Ray traced one careful finger around the raw spot at the corner of Fraser's mouth. "I used to work with this guy, gave me a pretty good example. Now come on." He dug his knife out of his pocket and started sawing at the ropes on Fraser's arms. "Let's get you home."

 

*****

 

"Upstairs," Ray commanded as soon as they got into the house, toeing off his shoes in the living room. Fraser looked for a second like he might object, but obeyed, climbing the stairs in front of Ray with deliberate care that Ray was about ninety-nine percent sure was designed to torture him.

He ushered Fraser into the master bathroom, seated him on the closed lid of the toilet and washed his own hands, scrubbing carefully to get the last of the warehouse grime out from underneath his fingernails. Then he turned to Fraser, who was watching him with dark, heavy-lidded eyes.

"Anywhere in particular I should start?" Ray asked him.

Fraser's lips curved. He shook his head. "No, Ray. Nowhere in particular."

"Okay," Ray said, "then how about..." and he reached down, tugged at the bottom hem of Fraser's soft cotton shirt. Fraser raised his arms obligingly, hissing a little through his teeth as he did, and Ray drew the shirt off gently, winced in sympathy as he caught sight of the welts and bruises dotting Fraser's pale skin. "Here," he said. A quick search through the cabinet under the sink yielded a glass jam jar, and when he unscrewed the cap, Fraser made a small, pleased noise.

"Yep," Ray said, dipping a finger into the salve, "I stole some from my ma, last time I was home. She said you gave her the recipe."

"Indeed I did." Fraser's eyes fluttered shut as Ray's slick fingertips glided over his skin, spreading the salve over the worst of the injuries. "She's made-- _ah_. She's made a few modifications of her own, in fact."

"I noticed." The consistency was slightly different than Ray'd been used to from his years with Fraser, but what he noticed most was the smell. Fraser's salves had always smelled like... well, like the things that they were made of, which was not something Ray really wanted to think about, particularly not in a situation that was going where he very much hoped this was going. The salve on his fingers, though, smelled strongly of rosemary, and the sharp pine scent filled the air around them, settling somewhere in Ray's bones that he hadn't even known he'd been missing.

When Ray had worked his way through all the more serious marks, he set the jar aside and moved on to his own remedy for minor wounds: he leaned down, taking his time, and pressed his mouth to a faint blue dot just on the outer curve of Fraser's shoulder. Fraser inhaled sharply, his eyes still closed, and Ray moved on, his blood humming, soothing each bruise with his lips, murmuring as he went, "I'm sorry, Benny, Christ, you scared the crap out of me, I'm so sorry..." When he'd covered every inch of skin he could reach, he kissed the corners of Fraser's full mouth and then sat back on heels, doing a final inspection, a little unsure of what to do next--what he _could_ do next, given Fraser's injuries.

Fraser's eyes opened, and Ray felt a quick, giddy jolt of electricity down his spine.

"Are you finished?" Fraser asked.

Ray nodded.

"Good," Fraser said, and he fisted both his hands in the front of Ray's shirt and dragged him to his feet.

Ray could practically feel his nerve endings sparking and fizzing as Fraser took Ray's mouth with his, no hesitation, no reserve, just thorough, wet, dedicated kisses that left Ray light-headed and reeling. Fraser walked him backwards, still kissing him, until the backs of Ray's knees hit the edge of his wide, empty bed and Fraser put a hand on each side of Ray's hips and _pushed_.

Ray fell backward onto the bed, panting. "Jesus, Benny, we gotta--you're all--"

"I feel perfectly fine, Ray," Fraser assured him, climbing gracefully up his body, fingers busy at the buttons of his shirt, and holy _fuck_ , Ray'd forgotten Fraser could get like this, single-minded and devastating. "In fact," he continued, working Ray's shirt off his shoulders and tossing it on the floor, "I'm feeling exceptionally good at the moment."

"No argument here," Ray said, and his laugh turned into a low moan as Fraser leaned down to kiss him again, chest to chest and the salve slick between them and oh _God_ it had been too long, and Ray couldn't get enough. He reached up, tangled his fingers Fraser's thick dark hair. "Benny," he gasped between kisses, "Benny, Benny, Benny..."

"Ray, God, yes, Ray," Fraser murmured back. Somehow--some crazy Mountie sleight of hand trick, probably--he was managing to get both of them out of their jeans without ever entirely breaking contact, his calloused hands skimming down Ray's legs. Their kisses went sloppy as they maneuvered, but then Fraser was kicking the last of the denim away and stretching out full-length on top of Ray, nothing but skin against skin now, his cock hard and leaking against Ray's hip and his tongue sweet in Ray's mouth.

Later, Ray thought, they would do this slow, map the differences and familiarities in minute detail, trace and explain every scar. But for now, this was exactly what he needed, Fraser moving urgently against him, mouthing things like "missed you" and "need you" and "love you" against his neck, the words only half-coherent and the rest of the sense soaking into Ray's skin. Ray could feel the heat starting to pool at the base of his spine and it was too soon--he had years to make up for and he wanted to do this, just this, for hours, yet--but he couldn't bring himself to stop, either, so he just held on as long as he could, until Fraser gasped and stiffened, pouring warmth between them, and Ray pulled Fraser's mouth to his and let go.

 

*****

 

When Ray's phone rang the next day from a Chicago area code, he picked it up, said, "We're fine, Langoustini's gone, I'll give you the full debrief in a few days," and barely managed to hang up before Fraser pulled him back into bed.

The day after that, he didn't get out more than, "I'm _retired_ , Lieu," followed by the snap of the phone cord being yanked out of the wall.

Finally, on the fourth day, he and Fraser managed to make it down to the kitchen for breakfast, wearing clothes and everything, and Ray took advantage of the brief time-out to check in with the guys up north.

It sounded like the station was hopping, the rise and fall of voices a weirdly comforting cacophony in the background. "So you think he's gonna stick it out?" Welsh asked, after Ray had given him the full story. "He could be a great asset there, if he's willing."

Ray shrugged. "No way to tell. I hope so. Either way, I'll be watching my back for a while, but." He looked over at Fraser, who was seated in the chair across from him, barefoot and sipping at a gigantic glass of water. _It's important to re-hydrate, Ray_ , Fraser had told him solemnly earlier as he'd presented Ray with his own sixteen-ounce glass, filled to the brim, _so you have lots of fluids for--_

Ray choked a little, his skin flushing hot at the memory. Fraser smiled at him over the glass. "I think I got some help with that," Ray went on, smiling back.

 _"Vecchio."_ Welsh said, long-suffering. "You've been out of the loop, so possibly you've forgotten the very long list of things about which I do not need to know."

"Sorry, sir," Ray said. He didn't feel particularly sorry at all.

"Well, as much as I hate to cut this delightful conversation short, I have a large stack of half-assed reports clamoring for my attention. But before you go, I got someone here who wants to talk to Fraser."

"Oh, yeah?" Ray said, something coiling uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach. _Frannie_ , he thought, _maybe it's Frannie_ \--

"Yeah. Hey, Kowalski!" Welsh shouted. "Am I interrupting your social hour, here? Did you want to talk to Fraser or not?"

Ray swallowed, tried to keep his smile as he handed the phone across the table. "Here," he said, "it's Kowalski," and he wasn't sure if Fraser's deer-in-the-headlights expression was a good sign or what.

But Fraser took the phone, held it firmly to his ear. "Ray," he said, clearly apprehensive. He was silent for a few seconds, listening--Ray strained to hear, because he sure as hell wasn't too proud to do that, but he was getting nothing--and then Fraser burst out laughing, the tension draining out of him in an instant. "I understand, Ray," he said, looking down at the table, a fond smile creasing his face. "Yes. Ray, I wanted to tell you, I'm... I know, I'm simply trying to... Ray... Ray... _Ray_..." He was still smiling, though, and Ray felt suddenly like he was intruding on a private conversation--which, all right, he _was_ , and had been since the beginning, but now he felt _bad_ about it--so he retreated to the far side of the kitchen, fiddling aimlessly and as loudly as possible with the fruit in the fruit basket.

After a few minutes, Fraser came up behind him, wrapping one arm around Ray's body to present him with the phone. "He wants to talk to you," he said, sounding entirely too pleased as he kissed the side of Ray's neck and then backed away, leaving Ray with the receiver in his hand.

Ray looked at it like he might have looked at a wild animal that had wandered into his kitchen, but he was dizzy enough from the neck-kissing to take his chances, so he brought the phone up to his ear and said, "Yeah?"

"Hey," Kowalski said cheerfully. "So. Hurt him and I'll kick your head into next year, are we clear on that?"

Ray snorted, found himself answering out of reflex, "That's what you got me on the phone to tell me? Oh, please. I'd wipe the floor with you, Stanley."

"Pretty big talk from a million miles away," Kowalski returned, and it was the same sort of macho playground bullshit he'd been slinging in Chicago months ago--which, if Ray was being honest with himself, he'd been only too glad to sling back--but it felt different now, like they were doing it for fun rather than to prove something, and Ray grinned, settling into it.

"Yeah, well," he said. "Anytime you want to test that theory, tough guy, you just say the word. I'll make a special trip."

"Better make it a one-way ticket, then," Kowalski said; Ray could hear the laughter in his voice. And then, lower, "I'm not kidding, though, Vecchio. Into next year. Maybe even the next _decade_."

"Message received, Kowalski, I'll keep that in mind," Ray said, and he was still grinning as he went on, "Now let me talk to my sister."

Frannie sounded good, too; she recited her usual litany of reasons she hated being pregnant, joy and pride shining through each one. Then she launched into a detailed overview of all the classes she had scheduled for her next semester of criminal law, and Ray tuned out what she was saying and just listened to the sound of her voice, with the bullpen humming away in the background; he could almost smell his Ma's pasta fagiole.

Frannie did wind down eventually, and Ray told her he loved her, sent his love to the rest of the family. And when he turned around after he'd clicked the "off" button on the phone, he found Fraser watching him, a big goofy smile on his face.

"Shut up," Ray told him.

"I didn't say anything!" Fraser protested.

"Like you need to." The kitchen seemed sterile and strange after the dimly-heard chaos of the 2-7, the pale sun outside leaching the color out of everything. Ray shivered and padded across the floor, dropping the phone onto the table on the way by; he and Fraser had hardly been more than five feet apart for the past several days and still Ray was hungry, couldn't help reaching out, hooking a finger in Fraser's belt loop. "Sounds busy up there," he said, distracted by the smooth line of Fraser's neck. Wanting to taste it.

"Mmm-hmm," Fraser agreed. Then, casually, "Autumn in Chicago is lovely."

Ray's eyes snapped up to meet Fraser's. "Yeah," he said carefully. "Yeah, that was always my favorite time of year. Not like here--eighty degrees and a hundred and fifty percent humidity all year 'round. That ain't natural."

Fraser nodded. "There's been snow in Fortitude Bay for a month now," he offered, his voice going husky. "It's very beautiful, but... I must admit, I'm finding that I very much miss the fall colors."

Ray took a deep breath. For the first time in months, he felt... open. Waiting. Like he actually _wanted_ to see what happened next. "What are you saying, Benny?" he asked, moving closer, closing the space between them. Fraser's hands drifted up Ray's arms.

"I'm saying," Fraser said, and he leaned in, pressed his mouth firmly to Ray's.

Ray opened against him, lazily stroking Fraser's tongue with his, letting the warmth slide through him. "Yeah, Benny," he murmured. "Yeah. Me too."


End file.
